FORK Cares Makes First Deliveries

Over the last few days, the FORK Cares program has made its first deliveries of its summer supplemental nutrition packages, according to Perry Pokrandt, president of Feed Our Rural Kids (FORK) Inc.

“We are both excited and grateful that the community has provided FORK the support required to make this program a reality,” said Pokrandt.

FORK Cares is a summertime nutritional support program created by FORK. The program’s goal is to provide supplemental nutrition to school-aged children from food insecure homes within the Northland Pines School District during their summer vacation.

“Up to 12,600 meals will be delivered over the summer of 2020,” said Rich Miech, chairman of the FORK Cares effort. “Year one is now officially underway and we are grateful to the communitywide support that was needed to make this program a reality during the COVID-19 environment.”

“Something that has changed from our original plan is that the FORK Cares support packages will be delivered in June through the Northland Pines food delivery efforts rather than through FORK-specific volunteers,” said Pokrandt. “The means of delivery for July and August is still up in the air, but we will be delivering support to kids all this summer.”

The level of support, 12,600 meals, is more than double FORK’s initial goal for the program.

“Due to the success of the fundraising during the recent Bret and Frisk and Friends program, we are able to ramp up our support to a meal a day during these vacation periods,” said Miech. “That’s very exciting.”

FORK is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations to support FORK’s ongoing programs can be made on online at feedourrural­kids.org